About
I am a cultural historian of the Middle East, focusing on how societies use religion, memory, and conflict to define and maintain identity. My scholarship explores this theme in various chronological and geographical contexts, and the scarlet thread running through my research is an attention to shared heritages and historical continuities, which I find through a comparative and transnational approach in seemingly contradictory narratives or unconnected cultures. My primary academic interests are Iranian and Persianate history, early Islamic historiography, the history of the Bahaʾi community in Israel, modern Central Asian identities, and Middle East minorities. I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Middle East Studies at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and have also taught at the University of Oklahoma (since 2012) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (since 2023). Additionally, I have also served since 2015 as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies. I completed my doctorate on the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah during the Arab-Muslim conquest of Iran and its changing perceptions through time.